Review of the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation: Submission from UTS Centre for Media Transition to DIGI

It is our strong view that the ACPDM should continue to include misinformation within its scope. The following factors favour a broad scope that includes misinformation. Maximising transparency and accountability Platform content moderation and other policies, practices and design factors that affect the publication and dissemination of third-party content should be transparent and accountable. The Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation, endorsed by several signatories to the ACPDM, emphasise the need for content moderation policies and practices to be transparent and accountable to users. The existing commitment of major ACPDM signatories to the Santa Clara Principles means that they are already committed to being transparent about the full range of their content moderation activities. Content moderation impinges on freedom of expression, whether or not it is required by law or state coercion. The voluntary nature of the ACPDM also favours a broad scope, given that consequences for non-compliance are largely symbolic. Relatedly, the focus of the ACPDM on platform systems and the role platforms play in the broader information ecosystem also favours a broad scope for the code. Where platforms implement measures relating to misinformation, these should be transparent and accountable. Given the difficulty of distinguishing misinformation and disinformation in practice, it is inevitable that measures addressing disinformation will also capture misinformation. Hence, platform actions will continue to encompass misinformation even if it is removed from scope. Additionally, as the code establishes minimum requirements for platforms, and as platforms' terms of service provide them with broad scope to take action against content they themselves proscribe, some signatories may explicitly continue to take steps to combat misinformation even if it is removed from the code. The ACPDM provides formal transparency requirements and accountability via the complaints function and other administrative structures and processes. Removing misinformation from scope would reduce the transparency and accountability of platform measures relating to misinformation. By way of comparison, the most-comprehensive legal framework globally is the European framework encompassing the Digital Services Act and the EU Disinformation Code. Reflecting the systems focus and transparency and accountability objectives of the EU framework, the latter includes misinformation within its scope.